The Hidden City

‘Nobody else can hear him,’ she assured him. ‘The Gods speak loudly – but only to certain ears.’

‘Thy sister bids me give thee greetings,’ Romalic announced in a voice of thunder.

‘Thou art kind to bear those greetings, Divine One.’

‘Kindness and courtesy aside, Sephrenia,’ the huge God declaimed, combing his beard with enormous fingers, ‘art thou yet prepared to serve us all and to assume thy proper place?’

‘I am unworthy, Divine One,’ she replied modestly. ‘Surely there are others wiser and better suited.’

‘What’s this?’ Vanion asked.

‘It’s been going on for a long time, dear one,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been avoiding it for centuries. Romalic always has to bring it up, though.’

It all fell into place in Vanion’s mind. ‘Sephrenia!’ he gasped. ‘They want you to be Over-Priestess, don’t they?’

‘It’s Aphrael, Vanion, not me. They think they can get around her by offering this to me. I don’t really want it, and they don’t really want to give it to me, but they’re afraid of her, and this is their way to placate her.’

‘Aphrael bids thee to make haste,’ Romalic proclaimed. ‘Ye must all be at the gates of Cyrga ere dawn, for this is the night of decision, when Cyrgon and, yea, even Klæl, must be confronted and, we may hope, confounded. E’en now doth Anakha move ghost-like through the streets of the Hidden City towards his design. Let us hasten.’ He lifted his voice and thundered, ‘On to Cyrga!’

‘Is he always like this?’ Vanion murmured.

‘Romalic?’ Sephrenia said. ‘Oh, yes. He’s perfectly suited to the Cyrinic Knights. Come along, dear one. Let’s go to Cyrga.’

There were dim, flickering lights far above, but the pool was sunk in inky blackness when Sparhawk surfaced and explosively blew out the breath he had been holding.

‘Kalten,’ he heard Aphrael saying, ‘wake up.’

There was a startled cry and a great deal of splashing.

‘Oh, stop that,’ the Goddess told Sparhawk’s friend. ‘It’s all over, and you came through it just fine. Xanetia, dear, could we have a little light?’

‘Of a certainty, Divine One,’ the Anarae replied, and her face began to glow.

‘Are we all here?’ Aphrael asked quietly, looking around. As Xanetia’s light gradually increased, Sparhawk saw that the Goddess appeared to be no more than waist-deep in the pool, and she was holding Kalten up by the back of his tunic.

‘Do you want to give me a hand with this, Sparhawk?’ Bevier said.

‘Right.’ Sparhawk swam over to join the Cyrinic, and together they hauled in the slender rope Bevier had trailed behind him as they had come through the tunnel. At the other end of the rope were their tightly-bundled mail-shirts and swords.

‘Wait a minute,’ Bevier said when the rope suddenly went taut. ‘It’s caught on something.’ He drew in several deep breaths, plunged under the surface, and went hand-over-hand back along the rope.

Sparhawk waited, unconsciously holding his own breath. Then the rope came free, and he hauled it in quickly. Bevier popped to the surface again, blowing out air.

‘Are you sure you aren’t part fish?’ Sparhawk asked him.

‘I’ve always had good lungs,’ Bevier replied. ‘Do you think we should get out our swords?’

‘Let’s see what Aphrael says first,’ Sparhawk decided, peering around. ‘I don’t see any place to climb up out of the water yet.’

‘Now what?’ Talen was asking the Goddess. ‘We’re swimming around at the bottom of a well here.’ He looked up at the sheer sides of the shaft rising from the pool. ‘There are some openings up there, but there’s no way to get to them.’

‘Did you bring it, Mirtai?’ Aphrael asked.

The giantess nodded. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ she said, and she sank beneath the surface and began to pull off her tunic.

‘What’s she doing?’ Talen asked, peering down through the clear water.

‘She’s taking off her clothes,’ Aphrael replied, ‘and she doesn’t need any help from you. Keep your eyes where they belong.’

‘You run around naked all the time,’ he protested. ‘Why should you care if we watch Mirtai get undressed?’

‘It’s entirely different,’ she replied in a lofty tone. ‘Now do as you’re told.’

Talen thrust himself around in the water until he had his back to Mirtai. ‘I’m never going to understand her,’ he grumbled.

‘Oh, yes you will, Talen,’ she told him in a mysterious little voice. ‘But not quite yet. I’ll explain it all to you in a few more years.’

Then Mirtai rose to the surface holding the coil of rope that had been slung over her shoulder under her tunic. ‘I’ll need something to stand on, Aphrael,’ she said, hefting the grappling hook attached to one end of the rope. ‘I won’t be able to throw this while I’m treading water.’

‘All right, gentlemen,’ Aphrael said primly, ‘eyes front.’

Sparhawk’s smile was concealed in the dimness. Talen was right. Aphrael seemed almost unaware of her own nakedness, but Mirtai’s was an entirely different matter. He heard the sound of water trickling off the sleek limbs of the golden giantess as she rose to stand, he surmised, on its very surface.

Then he heard the whistling sound of the grappling hook as Mirtai swung it in wider and wider circles. Then the whistling stopped for an interminable, breathless moment. There was the clink of steel on stone high above, followed by a grating sound as the points dug in.

‘Good cast,’ Aphrael said.

‘Lucky,’ Mirtai replied. ‘It usually takes two or three throws.’

Sparhawk felt a touch on his shoulder. ‘Here,’ Mirtai said, handing him the rope. ‘Hold this while I get dressed. Then we’ll climb up and go find your wife.’

‘What on earth are you doing, Bergsten?’

The Patriarch of Emsat started violently and jerked his head around to stare at the God who had just walked up behind him.

‘You’re supposed to be hurrying, you know,’ Setras chided him. ‘Aphrael wants everybody to be in place by morning.’

‘We came across some of Klæl’s soldiers, Divine One,’ Sir Heldin rumbled. ‘They’re inside that cave.’ He pointed at a barely visible opening in the hillside across the shallow gully.